May I Salt & Roast My Nuts? Plus: If Catechins Boost One's Energy Expenditure by 400% Why Don't They Work for Me?

One article, two questions, two science-based answers.

If you're like me I bet that you've been asking yourself previously, whether the cheap roasted nuts at the supermarket have the same health benefits as the expensive "raw" nuts from the health-food store... guess what: a recent study by scientists from the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences and the University of Otago confirms: "Dry roasting and lightly salting nuts do[es] not appear to negate the cardioprotective effects observed with raw nut consumption, and both forms of nuts are resistant to [dietary] monotony" and thus similarly recommendable health-foods.

Along with the latest "green tea for thermogenesis"-study, which finally answers the important question "If Catechins Boost One's Energy Expenditure by 400% Why Don't They Work for Me?", the Chinese-New-Zealand co-production is one of the two studies in today's SuppVersity article.

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• You can roast and salt your nuts (all puns intended) and still see health benefits (Tey 2016): Unless you're like the average seventh-grader and misunderstand the previous statement, roasted and salted nuts display no health risk whatsoever.
  
  In fact, Siew Ling Tey and colleagues were recently able to show in a randomized crossover study with 72 perfectly healthy participants, who were asked to consume 30 g/day of either raw or dry roasted, lightly salted hazelnuts for 28 days, each that the CVD risk factors the scientists assessed still improved significantly (sign. changes in body composition were not recorded - just for the record: body fat declined by 100-200g, muscle mass increased by ca. 100g).
  

  

  Figure 1: Changes in biochemical parameters in the two groups; only the change in triglycerides (trigs) showed a probably random, yet statistically significant inter-group difference (in favor of the roasted nuts | Tey 2016)

  Furthermore, neither the "raw" nor the "roasted nut"-group saw a decline in their "desire to consume" and "overall liking" of the hazelnuts, which constitute, due to their relatively high omega-6 and extremely high PUFA content, an excellent study object for the potentially negative effects of roasting (one would expect a potential oxidation of PUFAs and downstream ill health effects). Moreover, studies "examining the health effects of consuming hazelnuts are", as the authors point out "relatively sparse despite the fact that hazelnuts are the second most common nut produced worldwide" (Tey 2016).
  
  One downside of roasted nuts I do not want to withhold, though, is the slight decrease in alpha-tocopherol during the roasting process, of which the results of the study do, however, indicate that it had no health-relevant consequences.
• Human study confirms: Green tea + caffeine set your brown fat on fire... assuming that you do have functional brown fat (Yoneshiro 2017) -- In rodents, it's not news that the combination of catechins and caffeine will promote brown adipose tissue thermogenesis. In humans, however, the effect has rarely been observed directly and is, as Yoneshiro et al. point out, "poorly understood".
  
  Reason enough for the Japanese scientists to recruit 15 healthy male volunteers, subject them to fluorodeoxyglucosepositron emission tomography and thus assess their BAT activity before and after a single oral ingestion of a beverage containing 615 mg catechin and 77 mg caffeine, as well as after the chronic ingestion of the same beverage 2 times/d for 5 wk in 10 of the subjects.
  

  

  Figure 2: (A) Study protocol of the acute trial. (B) Study protocol chronic trial. Both of the trials were single-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled, season-matched crossover studies (Yoneshiro 2017).

  To complicate, ah... I mean to make the study more comprehensive the scientists also evaluated the cold-induced thermogenesis (CIT) after 2 h of "cold" exposure at cozy 19°C. Both the acute and chronic trials were single-blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled, season-matched crossover studies.
  

  

  Figure 3: Change in energy expenditure (adj. for FFM) after the ingestion of the test beverages (left). Thermogenic effects of the catechin or placebo beverage expressed as iAUC of EE (right | Yoneshiro 2017).

  What the authors found was in line with the observations in rodent studies - the effect size, however, was, as it was to be expected, magnitudes smaller; and, more importantly, occurred only in those subjects who were blessed with highly active brown fat depots:
  • A single ingestion of the catechin beverage increased EE in 9 subjects who had metabolically active BAT (mean ± SEM: +15.24 6 1.48 kcal, P < 0.01) but not in 6 subjects who had negligible activities (mean ± SEM: +3.42 6 2.68 kcal).
  • The ingestion of a placebo beverage containing 82 mg caffeine produced a smaller and comparative EE response in the 2 subject groups.
  The scientists multivariate regression analysis revealed a significant interaction between BAT and catechin on EE (b = 0.496, P = 0.003). In other words: The acute effects on your energy expenditure depend on the presence and activity of brown fat cells (see Figure 4).
  

  

  Figure 4: (A) Representative FDG-PET/CT images of the high- and low-BAT subjects. (B) Quantitative BAT activity as the SUV of the high- (n = 9) and low-BAT (n = 6) subjects (Yoneshiro 2017).

  Unfortunately, these fat cells which are already scarce in normal-weight human beings are quasi-non-existent (or dysfunctional, that's not 100% clear) in those people who'd need the fat-burning effects of green tea the most: the obese.
  
  Accordingly, it is important to point out that the beneficial effects of chronic GTE + caffeine intake on the thermogenic response to "cold" (19°C) exposure in the 10 normal-weight Japanese subjects may (and I would dare say that it "will") turn out poorly in the average obese individual.

This FDG-PET image shows where the average (lean) human has active BAT stores (van der Lans 2014).

So what's the verdict? While it is nice to know that roasting and (lightly) salting doesn't turn a health-food like nuts to poisonous trash, I guess that Yoneshiro's study sends the more important message to the fitness community. After all, they finally demonstrated that the answer to the question why green tea extracts don't work for you could be as simple as this: "That's because you don't have the brown fat that's responsive to the effects of the catechins."

That's huge because it shows that (a) the usefulness of green tea catechin supplements depends on the individuals and that (b) those who need "fat burners" the most, i.e. those who are still obese or struggling with their weight, are least likely to benefit from it.

After all, previous studies clearly indicate that the majority of morbidly obese (and older | Sacks 2013) subjects have virtually no brown fat/adipose tissue (Vijgen 2011 | or if they have it, it doesn't respond even to treatment w/ cold, insulin or ephedrine | Orava 2013; Carey 2013). In conjunction with the observation that there's a clear correlation between having active brown fat and having no weight problems (ibid.), as well as the realization that the activity of brown fat in the obese only increases after weight loss (Vijgen 2012), it is thus not surprising that many catechin users are disappointed | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Carey, Andrew L., et al. "Ephedrine activates brown adipose tissue in lean but not obese humans." Diabetologia 56.1 (2013): 147-155.
• van der Lans, Anouk AJJ, et al. "Cold-activated brown adipose tissue in human adults: methodological issues." American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology 307.2 (2014): R103-R113.
• Orava, Janne, et al. "Blunted metabolic responses to cold and insulin stimulation in brown adipose tissue of obese humans." Obesity 21.11 (2013): 2279-2287.
• Sacks, Harold, and Michael E. Symonds. "Anatomical Locations of Human Brown Adipose Tissue." Diabetes 62.6 (2013): 1783-1790.
• Tey, Siew Ling, et al. "Do dry roasting, lightly salting nuts affect their cardioprotective properties and acceptability?." European journal of nutrition (2016): 1-12.
• Vijgen, Guy HEJ, et al. "Brown adipose tissue in morbidly obese subjects." PloS one 6.2 (2011): e17247.
• Vosselman, Maarten J., Wouter D. van Marken Lichtenbelt, and Patrick Schrauwen. "Energy dissipation in brown adipose tissue: from mice to men." Molecular and cellular endocrinology 379.1 (2013): 43-50.
• Yoneshiro, Takeshi, et al. "Tea catechin and caffeine activate brown adipose tissue and increase cold-induced thermogenic capacity in humans." The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2017): ajcn144972.

Fat-Blocker Effect of Tea Catechins Confirmed (?) in Man - Sign. Abdominal Fat Loss (5-8%) in 12 Weeks W/Out Diet

Tea catechins (which can also be found in black and jasmin tea | see Figure 3) can help you keep particularly unhealthy abdominal fat (Després. 2012) at bay.

It is one thing to have in-vitro and rodent data that green tea can inhibit the digestion of dietary fat (reported previously in the SuppVersity Facebook News); it is another thing, however, to have a human study like the one Makoto Kobayashi and colleagues are about to publish in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Food & Function that shows that the "[i]ngestion of a green tea beverage enriched with catechins with a galloyl moiety (THEA-FLAN 90S) during a high-fat meal reduces body fat in moderately obese adults" (Kobayashi. 2015).

Ok, the abdominal fat loss does not, as the previous quote from the conclusion appears to suggest, occur instantly right after you've consumed your first tea w/ a single meal.

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Rather than that, 124 subjects (two of the initially 126 subjects 2 dropped out for personal reasons unrelated to the trial), 53 men, 71 women, who consumed similar, albeit non-standardized diets (see Figure 1 | note: physical activity was also identical) and began the study with body fat levels of ca. 31-35% had to consume the previously mentioned tea beverage that contained tea catechins (250 mL with 215.3 mg green tea catechins containing 211.0 mg green tea catechins with a galloyl moiety) twice or three times daily during mealtimes for 12 weeks, before the significant reduction in body fat became visible.

Figure 1: Macronutrient composition (in g an % of energy) of the non-energy reduced diets the subjects consumed; the values in the left pie chart represent a group average of all three intervention groups. Since the data is based on food records with photographs, it is probably more reliable than in your average diet study (Kobayashi. 2015).

Now, in view of the fact that this is not the first study to demonstrate weight loss effects in overweight subjects consuming green tea or, as in most other studies, green tea extracts, the word "during" and thus the fact that the green tea beverage was consumed with at least two of the three meals per day should be highlighted as a specific feature of the study at hand that is highly relevant to its interpretation.

Figure 2: Detailed analysis of the rel. change in fat area in the abdominal depot of the subjects (Kobayashi. 2015)

It is after all the requirement that the green tea beverage had to be consumed with a (preferable high fat) meal that allows the authors to conclude that the significant fat loss Kobayashi et al. measured by the means of computer tomography predominantly in the abdominal area are the result of an inhibition or slowing of the intestinal fat absorption and thus warrant the conclusion that "the ingestion of green tea beverages enriched with CGM together with high-fat meals may be an effective strategy for reducing body fat in moderately obese adults" (Kobayashi. 2015) - an observation of which I would like to add that the underlying mechanism is not 100% certain.

What about weight and, even more importantly, muscle loss? No, losing lean mass was not an issue in, because weight loss (-0.6 and -0.8% in the low and high dose group, respectively | measured by bio-electrical impedance vs. computer tomography as it was the case for the abdominal fat area) was actually not an issue, either. If you want to measure your success on the scale, green tea is thus not going to be the "diet tool of choice" (unless you use it alongside an energy-reduced diet)... however, if you take into account that the placebo group actually did what the average Westerner does, these days, i.e. gain weight and body fat over the 12-week study period, you may argue that you can still see the results on the scale which could finally stand still after years of displaying subtle, but eventually relevant increases in body weight.

The authors base their conclusion that it is "unlikely that absorbed green tea CGM leads to increased energy expenditure, followed by reduced abdominal body fat area" (Kobayashi. 2015) on two reasonable, but experimentally (in this study) not confirmed assumptions which are that little to no catechins actually made it into the bloodstream, because ...

1. the low caffeine content of the beverage limits the bioavailability of EGCG & co (caffeine enhances its bioavailability | Nakagawa. 2009) and
2. the ingestion of the beverage with a meal has been shown to significantly reduce the bioavailability of green tea catechins in comparison to the fasted state (Chow. 2005).

The assumption that its just a blockade of the digestion of fat becomes even more questionable, if you (re-)read my 2014 article on the carb blocking effects of tea... Well, eventually, though, you may argue that it does not matter if the reduction in abdominal fat was due to thermogenic effects, thermogenic and fat-blocking effects or, as the scientists believe, mediated exclusively an "inhibit[ion] or slowing [of the subjects'] intestinal fat absorption" (Kobayashi. 2015). And let's be honest, I guess you're right. What matters is that there were significant reduction ins abdominal fat (visceral, subcutaneous and total abdominal fat area). Reduction of which the data in Figure 2 tells you that ...

1. 

   Table 1: Catechin composition of the test beverages.

   the fat loss in the abdominal area was dose dependent - even if the differences between the low and high dose group did not reach statistical significance (for the exact catechin composition see Table 1 on the right) - and that 
2. roughly 50% of the benefits were lost within only 5 weeks when the subjects stopped consuming the green tea beverage, even though their diet didn't change at all (in fact, they consumed minimally less energy in the withdrawal phase from week 12-17).

Now, (b) is obviously good news for green tea lovers, but bad news for those who cannot imagine consuming green tea containing beverages "for the rest of their lives".

Green tea forever, it is then!? Well, as usual we have to consider what limits the generalizability of the results. Firstly, we are dealing with a group of people who have more than a few pounds of extra-weight on their hips. An abdominal fat loss of 8% in 12 weeks is thus not impossible, but not exactly likely to be seen in someone who starts at a body fat percentage of 15% or less (which is half what the subjects in the study at hand began with).

Figure 3: Catechin content (mg/10ml) of black, green and jasmine tea prepared from commercial tea w/ different infusion times (Bronner. 1998).

The second thing we have to keep in mind is the beverage itself. As you've previously read, it has been enhanced with catechins with a galloyl moiety (CGMs | EGCG, ECG, GCG, CG). Does this mean that you cannot achieve similar results if you simply drink green tea? Luckily, data from Bronner, et al. (1998) suggests otherwise. As you can see in Figure 3, it would take only 100 ml of commercially available freshly brewed (infusion time 3 min) green tea and even less black tea to achieve similar concentrations of EGCG and the other catechins with a galloyl moiety in your tea. Accordingly, the second obstacle to the gene- relizability of the study is actually irrelevant.

Third- and lastly, there's yet still the fast reversal of the effects which suggests that it is necessary to become a habitual tea drinker to see long-term / lasting benefits of green tea (or as the data in Figure 3 suggests even catechin containing tea in general) on your body weight and, more importantly, body fat you're carrying around | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Bronner, W. E., and G. R. Beecher. "Method for determining the content of catechins in tea infusions by high-performance liquid chromatography." Journal of Chromatography A 805.1 (1998): 137-142.
• Chow, HH Sherry, et al. "Effects of dosing condition on the oral bioavailability of green tea catechins after single-dose administration of Polyphenon E in healthy individuals." Clinical Cancer Research 11.12 (2005): 4627-4633.
• Després, Jean-Pierre. "Body fat distribution and risk of cardiovascular disease an update." Circulation 126.10 (2012): 1301-1313.
• Kobayashi, Makoto, et al. "Green tea beverages enriched with catechins with a galloyl moiety reduce body fat in moderately obese adults: a randomized double-blind placebo-controlled trial." Food & Function (2016).
• Nakagawa, Kiyotaka, et al. "Effects of co-administration of tea epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) and caffeine on absorption and metabolism of EGCG in humans." Bioscience, biotechnology, and biochemistry 73.9 (2009): 2014-2017.

Study Confirms: Excessive Green Tea Consumption (1-2L) May Reduce Your Thyroid Function (T3, T4) by Almost 50%

If you drink green tea 24/7 you don't have to wonder if your thyroid is sluggish and your belly growing.

I've alluded to the anti-thyroid effects of green tea extracts in previous articles. That simply drinking green tea (albeit excessively) would trigger the exact same effects, though, is news. News I got from a very recent study from the Zagazig University Faculty of Medicine in Egypt.

The authors, Abulfadle K. A., Bakhaat G. A., Shaik R. and Tantry B. A., studied the effect of excessive green tea intake on body weight and serum thyroid hormones in male mice and compared their results to what happens if the rodents are fed only fluoride and caffeine.

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To confirm the ill effects of excessive green tea intake on thyroid gland, the scientists measured both, the level of thyroid hormone and the weight of the thyroid of their 30 male albino mice who were divided into five groups.

• Control (C) group (6 mice) receiving distilled water. 
• Green tea (GT) treated group; 6 mice were given a 5 gm% tea hot water extract as their sole water supply (that's similar to you drinking 1-2 L or more). 
• Fluoride (FL) treated group, 6 mice were given fluorine excess solution as their only water supply. 
• Caffeine (Caf) treated group, 6 mice were treated with caffeine (6.25 mg/kg ip | that's only 0.51 mg/kg body weight for a human and thus not exactly much). 
• Propylthiouracil (PTU) treated group, a substance of which we know that it interferes with the synthesis of thyroid hormone, 6 mice were treated with PTU (10 mg/kg ip). 

Each of the five groups wass treated with the corresponding substance for 30 days, then sacrificed under ether anesthesia, blood was collected to study serum levels of T3 and T4.

Green tea triggers weight loss only in overweight subjects (Hase. 2001).

How is it possible that green tea helps people lose weight, then? The answer is quite easy: Green tea helps obese people lose weight (Hase et al. (2001) found sign. reductions in body weight only in subjects with BMI>25kg/m² which is - in Asian terms, because the subjects were Asians - already overweight). For them the anti-inflammatory effect of green tea by far outweighs any negative effects on their thyroid function. Whether or not you can benefit from drinking green tea or using green tea supplements may thus depend on (a) your body weight and (b) the dosage (< 800mg GTE highly suggested).

As you can see in Figure 1, there was the expected significant decrease in serum T3 and T4 in the PTU treated group (T3 = 0.72±0.03). Similar, albeit less pronounced decreases were seen in the green tea (T3 = 0.96±0.04) and the fluoride (T3 = 0.93±0.04), but not in the caffeine group where only the T3 levels were significantly suppressed (T3 = 1.46±0.08) in comparison to the control group (T3 = 1.71±0.05).

Figure 1: Effect of green tea, fluoride & caffeine on final body weight, T3 and T4 | data is expressed in % of control; *P < 0.05 compared to control. ***P < 0.001 compared to control. #P > 0.05 compared to control (Abulfadle. 2015).

In conjunction with these significant decreases in T3 and T4, the scientists observed an increase of the rodents' final total body weight, but no change of the relative thyroid weight (that's in contrast to studies using purified green tea catechins, only, where the thyroid was sign. enlarged | Chandra. 2010) in comparison to the control group.

Figure 2: TSH & T3 levels in rodents with green tea (G) or pure catechins (C) in their diets (Chandra. 2010).

Bottom line: While the study at hand does confirm that making green tea a primary source of your fluid intake will mess with your thyroid function. It's not absolutely clear, whether the effect is due to fluoride, caffeine, both of them or a synergy of the former with other ingredients of green tea, such as the hailed EGCG or other green tea catechins.

What we do know, at least, is that EGCG interacts with thyroid hormones. Kato et al. (2011), for example, found that it inhibits the effects of thyroid hormones on bone cells. In view of the fact that many studies which have observed ill effects of green tea catechins on the thyroid all used regular extracts which may contain both caffeine and fluoride (Sakamoto. 2001, we cannot tell whether EGCG, EC, ECG & co will have a negative effect on your thyroid health if they come in caffeine- + fluoride-free form. Luckily, Chandra et al (2010) must have foreseen this problem in their 2010 study in which they found that purified green tea catechins (no caffeine, no fluoride | C in Figure 2) have even more pronounced anti-thyroid effects than green tea extracts. The independent anti-thyroid effects of green tea catechins would also exlpain why previous studies show that the effect is sign. less pronounced for black tea extracts (Chandra. 2011) | Comment on FB.

References:

• Abulfadle, Khaled Abdelfattah, et al. "Effect of Excessive Green Tea Versus Fluoride and Caffeine on Body Weight and Serum Thyroid Hormones in Male Mice." Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology Advances 5.2 (2015): 565-573.
• Chandra, Amar K., and Neela De. "Goitrogenic/antithyroidal potential of green tea extract in relation to catechin in rats." Food and Chemical Toxicology 48.8 (2010): 2304-2311.
• Chandra, Amar K., Neela De, and Shyamosree Roy Choudhury. "Effect of different doses of un-fractionated green and black tea extracts on thyroid physiology." Human & experimental toxicology 30.8 (2011): 884-896.
• Hase, Tadashi, et al. "Anti-obesity Effects of Tea Catechins in Humans [和文]." Journal of oleo science 50.7 (2001): 599-605.
• Kato, Kenji, et al. "(-)-Epigallocatechin gallate inhibits thyroid hormone‑stimulated osteocalcin synthesis in osteoblasts." Molecular medicine reports 4.2 (2011): 297-300.
• Sakamoto, Y., et al. "Goitrogenic effects of green tea extract catechins by dietary administration in rats." Archives of toxicology 75.10 (2001): 591-596.
• Wolfram, Swen, Ying Wang, and Frank Thielecke. "Anti‐obesity effects of green tea: From bedside to bench." Molecular nutrition & food research 50.2 (2006): 176-187.

Looking for Supplements to Fire Up Your Fat Loss? Caffeine Mixed W/ Green Tea Catechins is Still the Go-To OTC Stack

Caffeine + catechines - the CC fat loss stack is the best we've left.

I know people often laugh, when they realize that "Fatburner X" contains mostly caffeine, but if you look at the research that's out there, caffeine is actually the most potent and best researched over-the-counter (OTC) "fat burner" the FDA has not banned, yet.

Let's take the results of a recent study in the Journal of Applied Physiology, for example. In said study, Matthew M. Schubert and colleagues tested whether caffeine supplementation with exercise would lead to higher energy expenditures and fat oxidation during exercise without however (and that's important!) altering the energy intake of the normal-weight, healthy recreationally active study participants.

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To this ends, they had their subjects whose mean BMI of 22.7 +/- 2.6 kg/m² was miles away from the BMIs of the average weight loss study participant complete a resting control trial (CON), a placebo exercise trial (EX), and a caffeine exercise trial (EX+CAF) in a randomized, double-blinded design.

In the active, i.e. the caffeine + exercise trial, the subjects consumed 2x3 mg/kg of caffeine (~2x large pots of coffee) 90 min before and 30 min after 1 h of cycling at ~65% of what it would take for the subjects to achieve their maximum O2 consumption (that's not exactly "just pedaling", but not really intense, either), before they rested for another two hours.

Figure 1: Schematic of experimental trials. Syringes show when blood samples were obtained; pills show when caffeine dose (3 mg/kg body mass) was consumed; downward solid arrows represent visual analog scales for appetite; upward dashed arrow represents liquid breakfast at 150 min; gray boxes represent gas exchange data collection (Schubert. 2014).

With the 1h prelude each of the testing sessions during which the subjects either sat around (CON), exercised with placebo ingestion, or exercised with the aforementioned 2x3mg/kg caffeine in their system, each of the sessions lasted 4 hours.

Figure 2: Energy expenditure (kcal) from carbohydrates (CHO) and fat (FAT) during the three trials (Schubert. 2014).

Gas exchange, appetite perceptions, and blood samples were obtained periodically. Two hours after exercise, participants were offered an ad libitum test meal where energy and macronutrient intake were recorded.

Figure 3: Ad libitum food intake on the subsequent meal and corresponding energy balance (energy expenditure during 4h test phase minus energy intake) for all three tests (Schubert. 2014).

As the data in Figures 2-3 tell you, the combination of exercise + caffeine resulted in significantly greater energy expenditure and fat oxidation compared with exercise alone (250 kJ = 59.75 kcal; 10.4 g) and sitting around lazily (3,126 kJ = 747.13 kcal; 29.7 g) (P = 0.05). Furthermore, the researchers observed a trend for reduced energy and fat intake compared with CON (718 kJ = 171.61 kcal; 8 g) (P = 0.055), which led to an effective and significant increase in the energy deficit between the exercise + caffeine and the control group (P = 0.05).

Learn how do dose caffeine here.

Don't intoxicate yourself! I hope that I don't have to remind you that reductions in testosterone are not the only consequence of overdosing on caffeine. In the end, you may "burn out" and not lose any weight. Use it strategically and sparingly. The ~480mg used in the study at hand are plenty and your total caffeine intake on a diet should not exceed 600mg per day - this includes caffeine pills, pre-workouts and any caffeinated beverages. Trust me, if you go higher, you're going to regret it.

Figure 4: Plot of the mean differences (green/oolong tea or caffeine condition vs. placebo condition) with 95% confidence intervals (CI) for energy expenditure (Hursel. 2011)

Since the subjects also perceived the workout as less difficult and more enjoyable (P = 0.05), the increased energy expenditure and reduced intake "on" caffeine provide a reasonable explanation for the weight loss benefits of caffeine.

These benefits can be significantly promoted, when caffeine used in conjunction w/ green tea catechins (Westerterp-Plantenga. 2010). For this readily available combination Hursel et al. report an average increase in energy expenditure per mg of caffeine + catechins of 100-150kcal per 100mg in their 2011 meta-analysis. That's quite significant, but obviously not scalable to dosages in the multiple-gram range.

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Bottom line: I am well aware that the famous stacks with three letters  produced significantly more pronounced weight loss benefits than the C+C = caffeine + catechin stack, but since the three (often also just two) letter stack is no longer available, ever since ephedra and mua huang have been banned, the CC stack with type specific additions like ALA for the overweight/obese is - at least as far as its scientific backup goes - the best replacement you will find.

And by the way, eventually all fat loss supplements require that you stick to your diet and exercise regimen. Even with drugs like thyroid hormones, you are not going to lose weight if you sit in front of your computer 24/7 and give in to your pizza and doughnut cravings | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Hursel, R., et al. "The effects of catechin rich teas and caffeine on energy expenditure and fat oxidation: a meta‐analysis." obesity reviews 12.7 (2011): e573-e581.
• Schubert, Matthew M., et al. "Caffeine consumption around an exercise bout: effects on energy expenditure, energy intake, and exercise enjoyment." Journal of Applied Physiology 117.7 (2014): 745-754.
• Westerterp-Plantenga, M. S. "Green tea catechins, caffeine and body-weight regulation." Physiology & behavior 100.1 (2010): 42-46.

Green Tea Extracts, Athletes and a Preliminary Answer to the Question: "Are Anti-Oxidants For Athletes Not?" No True Benefits or Negative Effects of 1g GTE in Sprinters

The supplement that was used in the study at hand was a commercially available product from Olimp Labs, a Polish producer of bodybuilding and fitness supplements.

Before I even go into more detail, I would like to point out that the study today's SuppVersity article will talk about is not able to answer the question whether anti-oxidants are for athletes once and for all. Why? Well, the subjects in the recently conducted experiment by Ewa Jówko, Barbara Długołecka, Beata Makaruk and Igor Cieslinski were sprinters from a University Sports Club, and they received a green tea supplement - so who can guarantee that a bodybuilder taking vitamin C would not have a totally different reaction to a totally different anti-oxidant?

No one can and that's why I'd like to ask you to go back to some of the previous articles on that matter and remind yourself that there is evidence that the provision of significant amounts of supplemental antioxidant can blunt the beneficial adaptive response to exercise (learn more and even more).

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Apropos "significant amounts"! If we take a look at the amount of green tea extract, the 16 male sprinters (21.6 y; 76.9kg; 11.8% body fat) received, a question arises: Are 2x250 mg of standardized GTE (245 mg polyphenols, including 200 mg catechins, among them 137 mg epigallocatechin-3-galate) a "significant amount" of green tea extract (GTE) if they are consumed twice daily?

I guess there may be supplement junkies out there who consume way more than this 1g of green tea extract everyday. Based on the dosages in studies that report beneficial effects of GTE, 1g is yet already on the high(er) side of the dosing continuum and thus unquestionably a "significant amount" of green tea extract, which was administered in a randomized controlled crossover study that was conducted during preparatory phase of yearly training cycle (after transition period) of the sprinters all of whom had more than 4 years of training experience.

What do the latest reviews say about exercise + antioxidant supplementation? In spite of the fact that you will find reviews with different undertones, the vast majority of reviewers concludes that convincing evidence of the long-assumed benefits of anti-oxidant supplementation does not exist.Whether this warrants conclusions as the one Mari Carmen Gomez-Cabrera, Michael Ristow and Jose Viña formulate in their 2012 paper(s) and "the vast majority of experimental evidence clearly advises against this supplementation" (Gomez-Cabrera. 2014), however is still a matter of open debate (Holloszy. 2012).

The two 4-week treatment periods (during which half of the subjects received GTE and the other half PL, and vice versa) were separated by a 4-week washout period. The duration of the washout period was selected based on the results of one previous study (Brown. 2011), in which 6-week supplementation with higher amounts of catechins (800 mg/day) was used on obese subjects. In view of the fact that the plasma catechin concentration in this study returned to its baseline level after at least 2 weeks of washout period, we can safely assume that a 6-week washout in highly active non-obese individuals should be enough to get rid of all the effects of only 250mg of catechins.

Both GTE and PL were administered in the form of dark gelatin capsules (Olimp Labs, De˛bica, Poland), identical in appearance (i.e., size, shape, and color); the same dosage regimen was used (two capsules twice a day). One GTP capsule contained 250 mg of standardized GTE (245 mg polyphenols, including 200 mg catechins, among them 137 mg epigallocatechin-3-galate) and additional substances (maltodextrin, microcrystalline cellulose, and magnesium stearate). Therefore, each participant was administered 980 mg polyphenols daily. PL capsules contained microcrystalline cellulose, magnesium stearate, and maltodextrin instead of GTP."

Compliance was measured by counting the capsules the subjects returned. Participants who returned no more than 15 % of their capsule dose were classified as "compliant". At the end of each of the two 4-week treatment periods, the sprinters performed a repeated cycle sprint test (RST) on a cycle ergometer (Ergomedic 839E, Monark, Sweden).

Based on the food logs, the scientists decided that there were no significant nutritional differences between the two phases of the study (Jówko. 2014)

Dietary standardization: The participants were asked to not modify their diet for the duration of the study, except for refraining from consuming any products containing green tea and limiting the intake of caffeine-containing drinks to one cup per day. Moreover, they were asked to maintain a similar
diet for both treatment periods. During both the first and the second treatment periods (during 7 days preceding each RST), the participants filled out a 3-day dietary record (covering 2 week days and 1 day of the week end).

The test consisted of four consecutive 15-s bouts (4 x 15 s), each of them with base set according to the Wingate procedure and separated by 1-min rest intervals. The subjects were asked to cycle for 15 s, as fast as possible, against a constant load (75 g/kg body weight).

The performance tests were performed in the morning following 12-hovernight fast, at air temperature between 19 and 21°C and with 40–60 % relative humidity. The subjects were instructed to not perform hard physical training for 48 h and avoid drinking tea and caffeinated beverages within
24 h prior to each of the RSTs.

Figure 1: Changes in blood indices of acid–base balance & lactate concentration induced by the repeated sprint test (49 x15 s) in sprinters (n=16) after 4-week supplementation with placebo (PL) or green tea extract (GTE; Jówko. 2014)

As you can see in Figure 1, there were no treatment (only time) effects as far as the acute changes in blood indices of acid–base balance and plasma lactate concentration are concerned. Against that background it's not surprising that there were no changes in the performance results of the repeated sprint test, either. Peak power, mean power, total work output, and fatigue index during the Wingate protocol were identical.

Table 1: Changes in blood parameters of oxidative stress and muscle damage induced by the repeated sprint test (49 x15 s) in sprinters (n=16) after 4-week supplementation with placebo (PL) or green tea extract (GTE; Jówko. 2014)

An observation that certainly raises the question, whether the treatment effects that were observed for the total antioxidant capacity and Superoxide Dismutase (SOD) levels (see Table 2) are even physiologically significant. Personally, I'd say no, because higher TAC and SOD levels have no health or performance value on their own.

Previous studies suggest that NAC impairs the adaptive response to exercise | learn more

Bottom line: In spite of the fact that the study at hand does not provide evidence that the commonly assumed beneficial ergogenic effects of green tea supplements exists, the results are still good news for green tea supplement users. They do after all suggest that the provision of significant amounts of anti-oxidant catechins does not appear to hamper the adaptive response to exercise.

In that, it's important to mention that the study at hand acquits only green tea, yet not vitamin C, NAC & co which act via different mechanisms of the charge of having potentially detrimental effects on the adaptive response of athletes, average joes and/or obese type II diabetics... and just to remind you: Theoretically the response of all three of them could be totally different | comment on Facebook!

Reference:

• Brown, A. L., et al. "Health effects of green tea catechins in overweight and obese men: a randomised controlled cross-over trial." British Journal of Nutrition 106.12 (2011): 1880-1889.
• Gomez-Cabrera, Mari Carmen, Michael Ristow, and Jose Viña. "Antioxidant supplements in exercise: worse than useless?." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism 302.4 (2012): E476-E477. 
• Holloszy, J. O., et al. "Response to letter to the editor by Gomez-Cabrera et al." American Journal of Physiology Endocrinology and Metabolism 302 (2012): E478-E479.
• Jówko, Ewa, et al. "The effect of green tea extract supplementation on exercise-induced oxidative stress parameters in male sprinters." European Journal of Nutrition (2014): 1-9.